1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fryer for heating oil vats with heating means to fry food.
2. Description of the Related Art
A fryer has oil vats and heating means, such as pulse burners, for heating up a cooking oil (referred to as an oil hereinafter) contained in the oil vats. The oil vats are classified into single vat model (referred to as a full vat hereinafter) and split vat model (referring to as a split vat hereinafter). The split vat model of the fryer has a heating means and a temperature sensor provided in each vat.
The fryer also includes a controller unit which comprises an operational display for operation and display of temperature settings and cooking menus, a first controller (referred to as a fry controller hereinafter) for determining the temperature setting and duration of cooking in accordance with a cooking menu, and a second controller (referred to as a burner controller hereinafter) for controlling the action of the heating means according to a detected temperature by the temperature sensor so as to maintain the temperature of oil to a setting level.
The fry controller and the burner controller are communicated to each other by data exchange in the serial communication type which employs less transmission lines than the parallel communication type and will hence be minimized in the overall construction. However, for operating in the serial communication type, both the fry controller and the burner controller are set in either the full vat model or split vat model. As the two controllers are also connected by the same communication cables, their model setting can be different, for example, the fry controller set in a full vat model can be connected to the burner controller set in a split vat model. This will result in a detection error such as thermistor disconnection or combustion failure, permitting no action of the heating means. Also, the discrepancy in the model setting can hardly be notified and its measure will be retarded.
It is an object of the present invention, as defined in claim 1, to provide a fryer which can readily detect a discrepancy in the model setting for the full vat model or the split vat model between the two controllers while its simple arrangement for a serial communication type remains unchanged.
For achievement of the above object, the fryer according to claim 1 of the present invention is arranged wherein data of the model setting is transferred from one to the other between the first and second controllers at the start-up of controlling the heating means and when a discrepancy in the model setting between the two controllers is found, the other controller received the data gives an alarm.
As defined in claim 2, the fryer according to claim 1 is modified wherein when the discrepancy in the model setting is found, the action of the heating means is inhibited.
As defined in claim 3, the fryer according to claim 1 or 2 is modified wherein the data of the model setting consists of temperature measurements of the temperature sensors determined by the second controller and when one single oil vat is used, the temperature measurement from the other unused oil vat is set to an impossible level and transferred from the second controller to the first controller so that the first controller acknowledges the model setting of the second controller.